The Last Summer of Ada Bloom

by Martine Murray

  ‘But don’t worry because Father Christmas really is true. And you don’t need to tell anyone you know about the Easter bunny. Don’t tell your mum and it won’t stop happening. Does it make you sad? It made me a bit sad.’

  ‘No, I don’t care.’ Toby tugged at his finger. He stared at Ada as if she was a frightening person.

  Ada hung her head. It was all because of the choc-coated ice cream and the secret and how together they had built up a sort of pressure inside her, which exploded in that sudden, terrible way, and now there was nothing she could do about it. She couldn’t even say sorry because Toby was pretending it didn’t matter; yet Ada knew it did. In her mind she began to sing:

  Miss Mary Mac, Mac, Mac,

  All dressed in black, black, black

  With silver buttons, buttons, buttons,

  All down her back, back, back.

  Toby still didn’t eat his choc-coated ice cream.

  She asked her mother for fifty more, more, more,

  To watch the elephant, elephant, elephant,

  Mop up the floor, floor, floor.

  When the movie finished, they didn’t say anything else to each other, and Ada was so worried she forgot how to be normal. The harder she tried to think normal thoughts, the more and more her thoughts would turn into Easter bunnies and Mrs Layton in the nude. So she had to start singing again just to scare them away.

  By the time they all said goodbye, the doom had crept in and Ada had the terrible pressing feeling again. And this time she had been the one to start it by breaking a bit of Toby’s heart. Now life would swing like a wrecking ball, make PJ die or roll a fireball over Tilly when she went to a party at night and it would all be her fault.

  24

  Tilly would be in trouble for coming home late from the Res. She didn’t care. She didn’t care the whole way home. Her legs were stuck to the vinyl seat of Simon Marsh’s car. She sang along to the radio, and the music made the day spin past in colours of sky, road and sun. She stared out the window without looking at anything—a pleasant internal commotion danced her along with the song. Love was a boat she had just sailed out to sea in, no matter what Alice said.

  Alice was in the front seat—a red bikini tie poked through her curtain of gold hair. Tilly could buy bikinis now. Her dad had given her that twenty bucks, either for nothing or to try to make it up to her. She began to imagine the sort of bikinis she’d buy. Alice smacked Simon on the thigh, lit a cigarette and turned around, puffing a halo of smoke.

  ‘So?’

  ‘So, nothing.’

  Tilly wasn’t going to talk now. Alice was wrong about Tilly’s feelings. Tilly leaned back against the sun-warmed seat. She closed her eyes and basked in the window’s patch of sun. Once Simon wasn’t around she would tell Alice, and Alice would shine smiles of welcome down on her. They could go shop for bikinis together.

  When they dropped her off, Tilly ran inside, holding tightly the happiness, and getting ready to use it as a buffer. The kitchen was empty. It was clean too. There was an unfamiliar hush and stillness. Martha wasn’t even home. Tilly had never been so well prepared for the battle and now she stood in the kitchen and there was nothing to contend with, not even a mess. There was just her, let loose in the moment’s perfection. Not even Ada was there to ruin it. She went down the hall towards the bedroom, preparing to wriggle her wet bathers out from under her dress, but stopped to listen to a noise coming from the front porch. Tilly crept closer and pushed open the flywire door. Ada lay crunched up on her side on the day bed sobbing. PJ was curled up beside her.

  ‘Snug, what’s the matter?’ Tilly squatted down next to Ada. ‘Where’s Mum?’

  Ada stifled her sobs. She threw her arms dramatically around PJ as if only PJ could console her.

  ‘Where were you?’ she whined. ‘I came home, and no one was here.’

  ‘Ben and I were at the Res. I didn’t realise Mum wouldn’t be here. Where did Dad go?’

  Ada frowned and sat up. She wiped at her nose with her arm and squinted at the dazzling sky. Tilly stroked Ada’s forehead, soothing it out with her thumb. Poor little Ada—still such a baby.

  ‘Dad dropped me home and he didn’t come in. He had to go to a meeting,’ Ada said, sniffing. Tilly doubted this. No one does business on weekends. She didn’t trust her father anymore, but she didn’t want Ada to see it.

  ‘Why didn’t you go to Louis and May’s?’ she said.

  ‘I couldn’t.’ Ada perched on the edge of the day bed, her hands clinging to the sides, her brown legs swinging furiously. Tilly waited for the explanation. Shadows wobbled over the garden. A breeze tousled the heads of lavender. Still Ada’s bare feet swept back and forth.

  ‘Why couldn’t you go there, Snug?’ Tilly asked. She watched a sun-addled bee crawl across the edge of the veranda.

  ‘I didn’t go there.’ Ada said, glancing up at Tilly again. Her lip quivered, her face contorted into a strange solemnity.

  The terrible abandonment that had struck at Ada’s heart was affecting. Ada’s swinging legs dragged. Tilly wanted to wrap the afternoon up in her arms and hold it still.

  ‘Let’s lie down,’ Tilly sighed. They could just be like plants in the garden, letting the breeze blow away anything they didn’t want. Tilly stretched out behind Ada. Ada watched her. After a moment she lay down too. They had to turn sideways to fit. Tilly closed her eyes. The sun couldn’t reach them there.

  After a while Ada confessed. ‘I did something terrible today. I’ve made something bad happen because of it. So that’s why I couldn’t go over there.’

  ‘Tell me what you did.’ Tilly was steady. She had never felt so sure of herself. She could make anything better. Love had made her tender. She loved the day, the stumbling bee, the feeling that life had crept out of a dark drawer and exploded in full colour.

  ‘I told Toby Layton the Easter bunny isn’t true.’ The confession brought fresh tears. It wasn’t like Ada to nurse this sort of anguish.

  ‘But listen,’ Tilly said. ‘It’s not so bad. Someone was going to tell Toby one day. We all find out sooner or later. Ben didn’t care when he told you. Remember?’

  ‘This is different. Something bad is going to happen now.’

  ‘That’s silly. Nothing bad is going to happen.’

  Ada was so dramatic, so convinced by her own imaginings. It would have annoyed Tilly once, but not today. Poor Ada.

  ‘Yes, it will. I know it. Am I going to get in trouble from Toby’s dad?’ Ada persisted.

  Tilly laughed. ‘No, you won’t get into trouble. Look it’s just what happens. Kids find out. No one will get cross. Nothing bad will happen. I promise.’ Ada was confusing one secret with another, or the weight of one was bearing down on the other. But it wasn’t worth even mentioning the other secret, the affair. It had become a monster in Ada’s mind against which her childish imagination pitted visions of imminent retribution. If Tilly even talked about it, that would just make it more concrete. So far Ada hadn’t mentioned Mrs Layton; maybe she’d even forgotten it and this was just the way Ada’s mind worked anyway—with a theatrical sensitivity that sought out the darkness in things. It was best to draw Ada away from the whole business.

  ‘Can I tell you something?’

  ‘What?’ Ada sat up now and stared down at Tilly. She was like a baby bird, waiting.

  ‘I think I’m in love.’ This was a silly way to put it, but Tilly knew Ada would like it best if it came out in all its fullness, shining with fanfare. ‘With Raff Cavallo.’ Tilly blew a pretend trumpet.

  Ada frowned and then tilted her head thoughtfully, still not taken in.

  ‘I saw him today at the Res. He—’

  ‘But why didn’t you take me?’ Ada interrupted. Her voice was little and mournful. She started again to rock back and forth. Tilly took her hand and held it still.

  ‘Because you were at the movies, remember? I will next time.’

  ‘Did you kiss Raff?’ Ada said accusingly. She looked petulant.


  ‘No, we just talked, on the li-lo in the water. But I felt something. You know how when people fall in love in the movies they do swoony things, well that was how I felt, as if my head was just about to float up into the sky.’

  Should she tell Ada how it happened exactly? How Raff had appeared there, suddenly, before she’d even realised he was at the Res. There he was, blocking the sun almost, laughing. She hadn’t seen anything except the spill of laughter from his green eyes. And she hadn’t had time for a thought to even be formed before the sun came down in a flood of brightness, and warmed every point of brittleness, so that moments passed like air. And the words skipped between them. His body shifted on the slope, his eyes roved over her. She could hardly remember now how they ended up on the li-lo.

  ‘I’m going to show you a water bird, a white-faced heron.’ He had said. He didn’t ask her; he told her. She liked his assumption that she would be interested to see a white-faced heron. When they got close to the reeds, the bird took flight and it was only them there. Everyone else was a distant dot on the shore and she thought about kissing him. What would it be like, if he came that close, if he touched her face? She glanced at his mouth. He was smiling at her, lazy and alert all at once, kicking the water away. The sun made diamonds on the water. The li-lo bobbed up and down like a lullaby. His hand flung out right next to her leg. She liked his hand. She liked it lying so close to her leg.

  ‘But aren’t you scared of him? You said he was a criminal. Remember?’ Ada was adamant.

  Tilly laughed again. ‘Things change. You’ll see. Someone you don’t even notice at school now will one day seem interesting to you, because you change too.’

  Ada shook her head. ‘I won’t change.’ She began to swing her legs again, as if to sure this up. She was so determined it made Tilly wonder if it were true, if Ada would always be just like she was, looking deeply into things and making up mysteries. She had expected Ada to be excited. Ada had always stuck up for Raff Cavallo and now she was playing another tune.

  ‘Helloooooo. I’m home,’ their mother called out. It came like a poke in the head. Martha sounded as if she was someone else, visiting someone else’s house.

  Ada’s face jerked anxiously. ‘Mum’s home.’

  Tilly sat up.

  ‘There you are!’ said Martha. She lifted her arms dramatically. ‘I thought no one was home. Monkey, come and give me a cuddle. How was the movie?’

  ‘Where have you been?’ Ada gave herself up for the cuddle, even though Tilly could tell she felt cross still. Poor Ada, she couldn’t tell Martha she had been alone because she wouldn’t want Martha to get angry with Tilly.

  ‘Where’s Ben?’ Martha said, looking at Tilly, while clamping Ada to her.

  ‘He’s at the Res.’

  ‘Oh.’

  Martha seemed different. She wasn’t bothering to find things out; she wasn’t being Old Sherlock. She released Ada, slumped on the step and kicked off her sandals. ‘I think we’ll have eggs on toast tonight. I can’t be bothered cooking. I’ve been out all afternoon.’

  ‘Where?’ Ada persisted, still bearing her silent grudge. She looked at her mother’s sandals on the step, ‘And why did you put my sneakers on the grass?’

  ‘Where?’ Martha echoed, giggling.

  She’d been drinking—that was it. Tilly examined her mother’s face but as she caught her eye or Martha caught hers, there was a crash, a jolting recognition and Martha straightened up and looked with sudden severity at Tilly.

  ‘Well, I’ll tell you where I was. I was at Daisy Cavallo’s.’ She glared with some satisfaction.

  Tilly began to panic. She wouldn’t care, she reminded herself; she had her other feelings, true and warm and joyous feelings that would float her above anything her mother shot out. She stood up, getting ready to go inside.

  ‘Why did you go there, Mum?’ she said.

  Martha’s head fell on an angle. Her eyes fluttered lazily. ‘Why?’ she repeated, drifting for a moment elsewhere. Ada stared at her too, bewildered, and Martha suddenly frowned, pulling herself back and folding her arms across her chest.

  ‘Well, what I would like to know is why you took money from your father?’

  Tilly held her mouth shut. More than anything, she felt her failure to block her mother out. Even now, when she was so happy, her mother had got in and let all the bad feelings rush forward.

  Martha’s face was cold with inquiry.

  Tilly went directly to her pillow, fished out the envelope and returned, standing at a distance from her mother, her arm thrust out.

  ‘I don’t want it, anyway.’

  Martha reached out and took it. Then she looked away.

  ‘What’s going on?’ Ben stood there, grinning, hands in his shorts pockets. ‘Sorry, I’m late.’

  ‘Tilly’s getting in trouble,’ Ada sighed.

  The stern look on Martha’s face melted instantly. She stood up and walked over to him and taking his face in her hands, she pressed a rugged kiss on him. ‘Do you mind eggs on toast tonight? I’m tired out today.’

  Tilly slipped inside and headed for her bedroom. She wouldn’t even eat: she didn’t need it. Instead, she would grope around for that faltering happiness, she would find it again. But it was harder than she thought, and for a while all she could think about was running away and never coming back.

  Later Ada arrived with a boiled egg hidden up her sleeve. She climbed on the bed and passed it to Tilly.

  ‘You didn’t finish telling me,’ she said settling in, ‘about Raff on the li-lo.’

  And because Ada looked so reproachful and serious and ready, Tilly put aside her anger and her quest to rid herself of it. First she would tell Ada the whole story in exactly the sort of detail that Ada expected, and then she would work out how to leave.

  25

  Martha had woken up with a real migraine this time. It always happened if she drank, and she couldn’t even remember how many drinks they’d had. It was hot. Gin and tonic in the middle of the day.

  They’d sat in Daisy’s kitchen at the table. The blinds were drawn to keep out the sun. It was private and removed; the world retreated from view. Martha felt that Arnold Buch would have approved of Daisy Cavallo, and if anyone would understand Arnold, Daisy would. She was a bohemian. She didn’t have a tidy house. She drank gin and tonic in the middle of the day. Her fingers were decorated with rings and red nail polish. Martha felt she could show Daisy her hidden self, show who she could have been if life had gone differently. She began to explain about Arnold Buch. And as she began to open up, the understanding smiles that drifted across Daisy’s face encouraged further disclosure.

  Martha had only seen Arnold Buch play piano once. In the large room at Mary Galmotte’s party. At first he had simply leaned over and with one hand played a few notes, his ear turned just slightly towards it. Then as if the sound had caressed him, his body followed, and he succumbed, seating himself on the stool. He held himself quite erect over the piano, rocking slightly, as he finished the last bit of his cigarette and squashed it down into his glass. He put both hands gently on the keys and then curled over them like a dying flower stem, as if he and the piano were drawn to embrace or secretly converse. The notes rang out without any hesitancy. People turned and smiled faintly—some floated over and leaned on the piano. What he played was slow and sad and lingering. Some people wouldn’t have appreciated it at all, not at a party. It fanned out through the room like a shaft of light, a glancing shadow of wistfulness, as the talking hushed down a little and for a moment everyone seemed disorientated.

  Mary Galmotte sashayed over. This wouldn’t do. She pouted attractively and put her arm around Arnold, leaning into him and saying, ‘Darling, I never knew you could play. A man of hidden talents, I should have guessed. It’s marvellous, but play something more upbeat, it’s a party for godsake, not a funeral. Then everyone could dance.’

  Daisy was amused. ‘Did Arnold oblige her with a boogie-woogie?’ she asked.


  Arnold was not the obliging type. He lifted his hands. The sad slow music stopped. He looked at Mary; his brows arched, either in mock amusement or plain disdain, and the sudden ensuing quiet accentuated its glimmer of cruelty. Mary Galmotte reddened but gathered herself. Arnold responded with a resounding bark of laughter. It was very uncomfortable; it seemed that the whole room was waiting, but it lasted only a moment before Arnold leaned away from the piano with a mannered tilt of his head, as if he was in fact considering Mary Galmotte’s request, which of course he wasn’t. He stood up and grinned at Mary, his expression having recovered its distant wilting smile.

  He said, ‘Well, Mary, you’re right of course. Put a record on.’

  Martha had only just met Arnold Buch, but she had already sensed in him something hidden and grand, something almost old-fashioned. It was a time when hats were being thrown off, gloves discarded, bread came already sliced, people were protesting, Martin Luther King had marched, women wanted equality and people wanted to boogie. In a few years, a man would walk on the moon. But Arnold seemed impervious to all this, he had a timeless dignity, an almost regal demeanour which Mary had offended. What it showed both frightened and intrigued Martha. But she was ready for danger, even wanting it. Here was an opportunity to crack open the heart of life and to get at whatever it was that lay beneath. There she was, slowly getting drunk in Mary Galmotte’s white house, in Imogen Ashton’s green silk dress, with two men, neither of whom she had ever met before and each of whom stirred something in her. She felt like a crude version of Cinderella in her borrowed finery, and she gave herself to the night’s atmosphere, thinking that it was a game that would end. In fact it was the looming inevitability of its end that hurled her into it. Martha knew that Mary Galmotte would never have done what Martha did that night, but Mary didn’t have to. Mary belonged there, in her elegant white house, throwing parties, waiting to trap a respectable, wealthy husband.